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Paul S. Ryan, a lawyer for the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog group in Washington, said the campaign filings “confirm what I suspected about Jeb Bush — that he used his super PACs to raise and spend massive amounts of money in violation of the law.” His group has brought complaints against Mr. Bush and other candidates accusing them of violating fund-raising limits. ...

It was the sort of argument that dismayed career civil rights attorneys. “In their zest for the colorblind society they professed to see, they didn’t recognize that the long couple hundred years of segregation and discrimination continued to have present-day effects,” one of those attorneys, J. Gerald Hebert, told me. “I would say they had a fundamental lack of understanding of the 14th and 15th Amendments, and what Congress could do under those amendments — I still don’t think Roberts understands it.” ...

Lawrence Noble, who served as FEC general counsel for 13 years until 2000, told Bloomberg BNA recently that, in his experience, it was always rare for the agency to formally refer a case to DOJ for prosecution. ...

“We’re definitely seeing dark money flooding into state and municipal politics,” said Paul Ryan, senior legal counsel at Campaign Legal Center, a national political reform group. “It’s potentially disastrous, because it undermines voters’ right to know who is trying to influence them.” ...

“He was traveling constantly in what appears to me to be ‘testing the waters’ if not actually campaigning,” said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel to the Campaign Legal Center, which has filed complaints with the Justice Department about Mr. Bush’s early fund-raising and spending. ...

“The line is: Anything you do in your time, you’re fine to do either for pay or as a volunteer. You can’t use any resources in your congressional office. No phones, no computers. If you do any campaign activity, you’re supposed to step out of the office. My experience is that doesn’t happen,” said the Campaign Legal Center’s Meredith McGehee. “It’s an important line because taxpayer money is not supposed to be spent on the senators’ political aspirations.” ...

Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission, said he had never heard of campaigns distributing that many debit cards to workers and said it "definitely is odd." Many campaigns reward volunteers with doughnuts, coffee or pizza — not gift cards. ...